Saturday, September 29, 2012

As we continue to commemorate the Sesquicentennial of the Civil War, we are moving into that span of time when Emancipation moved from the realm of proposition to reality. This past Saturday marked 150 years since the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation was issued and the amount of ink spilled on the genesis of black recruitment will no doubt increase over the next few months. As we head into this crucial period, I fear that familiar narratives that oversimplify the USCT experience will once again make their way into the public discourse.

One such narrative goes something like this: Once the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, African American men living in both the north and the south dropped what they were doing and flocked to recruiting stations to don Union blue and fight for freedom and equality.

While there is more than a germ of truth in this popular narrative, the reality shows that large numbers of African American men stayed away from military service or – even more astonishingly – were compelled to join the army by force. Whether or not a large portion of the African American military age population of a particular state sent large numbers of black troops to the front had much to with the progress of the union army. In areas where the Federals had not gained a toehold, enslaved men rarely took the tremendous risk of attempting to enlist (a good example of this is Texas, which provided fewer than 50 men total.)

Further complicating matters were instances in which the military overreached in its attempts to enlist African Americans into the ranks. Public relations disasters such as those which occurred in the Sea Islands of South Carolina in 1863, when local slaves were rounded up and forced into the army, soured the opinions of many and caused mistrust to poison the attitudes of many former slaves.

While the Sea Islands story has been recounted in such works as Rehearsal For Reconstruction: The Port Royal Experiment, I recently came across a similar incident that occurred much closer to home. While researching the location of Camp Casey, I came across another story that illustrates just how complex African American recruitment could be.

And the kicker for me was that it also involved none other than the 23rd USCT…

In my previous post about Camp Casey I speculated that it could have been located on the grounds of the Arlington estate, where Robert E. Lee resided for 30 years before the outbreak of Civil War. The conclusion was based on eyewitness accounts and circumstantial evidence. And now even more evidence can be gleaned from the following:

In April of 1864, D. B. Nichols, the Superintendent of Freedman’s Village (a large contraband camp located near the present-day site of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier), wrote a letter to Col. Elias Greene, Chief Quartermaster of the Department of Washington. The letter begins by recounting an event that had occurred during the previous month. Nichols states that he met five men, “one wearing the dress of a sergeant of the Colored Regt forming at [Camp] Casey” who asked permission to enter Freedman’s Village “to see their friends.” Nichols allowed the men to enter and apparently gave them no more thought until he was met “by a crowd of women in great distress, saying that colored men had been inside and taken away five or six persons by force, entirely against their will.” The press gang then escaped Freedman’s Village through a gap between the guard posts and “had taken the men off to the camp.” The incident was immediately reported, but it appears to have caused little concern, except among Nichols and the residents of Freedman’s Village.

Map of Freedman's Village, 1865

Nichols summed up this disturbing event by writing:

“This affair had a most unfortunate influence upon the minds of the inhabitants of ‘Freedman’s Village,’ so that many of them were kept from night schools and meetings, for fear of being pressed into service against their will.”

In response, the leadership of Freedman’s Village issued an order telling the sentries “to admit no Colored soldier to the camp, unless upon a written order, except it was to attend church on the Sabbath; nor could any white person be admitted if it was thought that the object of the visit was to interfere with the order…of the camp.”

It appears as if this measure was effective for all of three weeks, when the roving bands of recruiters learned of the arrival of 407 men, women, and children who had just arrived from Haiti and were temporarily lodged at Freedman’s Village. Apparently this large group of potential recruits proved too tempting a target and after being denied entrance to the camp, the recruiting party made another attempt to forcibly round up men of military age and escort them quietly out of the camp. This time, however, the sentries were alerted to the problem and the Haitians were “forcibly taken possession of by [the] guard and brought inside the village.”

Needless to say, this did not sit well with the recruiters of the 23rd USCT. Capt. Robert G. Perry, a commander of the guard at Freedman’s Village, wrote that their resistance “incensed and provoked these Recruiting Officers beyond measure.” Perry went on to note that, “They have threatened to ‘Clean out the Village,’ a threat which fortunately for the parties concerned, was never attempted to be enforced. There would have been some Colored Soldiers less.”

So what was the method employed in these attempts to impress men into the 23rd USCT? According to Nichols, the soldiers would approach a freed person inside the camp and tell them, “if you go quietly you will receive fifteen dollars bounty, but if you refuse, you will get no money and we shall draft you.”

Other recruiters were less ambiguous:

“Some of the inmates of this village have been stopped by colored soldiers and threatened, if they would not enlist; and the only manner they saved themselves from being pressed, was because they possessed greater physical strength.”

The motivation, then, was simple enough – these soldiers would entice men to join on the premise of a lucrative bounty, which was usually more than they made in one month of work at Freedman’s Village. In reality, the promised bounty would most likely end up in the hands of agents or speculators. However, the members of the 23rd USCT who brought the “fresh fish” into Camp Casey would, in fact, receive a bounty for each recruit obtained.

It is also important to note that these events took place before July of 1864 when congress passed legislation making it legal for Northern states to recruit black Southerners and count them towards their state quotas – a practice accomplished by paying them sizeable bounties and which usually caused such excesses as those which occurred at Freedman’s Village. Perhaps the motivating factor, then, lies in the issue of unequal pay for USCTs, which had not been fully resolved by March of 1864. Perhaps the bounty hunters were simply trying to compensate for the smaller amount of money that they were paid each month.

As Nichols concluded his report, he stated that if the African American men of Freedman’s Village were to be recruited, “let it not be by a squad of Black Soldiers who have been promised so much bounty on the obtaining of a certain number of Recruits.”

As for the inhabitants of Freedman’s Village, nothing positive seems to have emerged from their ordeal. We may never know how many of the members of the 23rd USCT that were killed at the Battle of the Crater were former residents of Freedman’s Village, forced to enlist and fight against their wishes. Nichols described the overall reaction as follows:

“It has filled these people with such fear the communication is almost entirely broken off between this Village and ‘Camp Todd’ (another of our Camps bordered on the ‘Govt Farms’ under this command) this Camp being situated beyond the barracks where the Colored Regt is situated.”

Residents of Freedman's Village

Injustices such as those committed at Freedman’s Village should be inculcated into the larger narrative of black military service as the Sesquicentennial continues. The overall narrative of brave African American men rising up and striking a decisive blow for freedom will not be diminished and our understanding of their service will be deepened.

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Most students of the American Civil War are familiar with the story of how Arlington National Cemetery was created – in the spring of 1864 when the need arose for a new burial ground near the nation’s capital, Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs sought to kill two birds with one stone. By locating the cemetery on the grounds of the Arlington estate, Meigs found ample ground for new grave space and had the opportunity to ensure that his prewar acquaintance -- Robert E. Lee – would not be able to come back to the place he had called home for 30 years. A lesser-known but equally compelling story related to Civil War Arlington is that of Freedman’s Village, where newly-freed slaves came by the thousands to work government farms and receive a rudimentary education. Sojourner Truth worked at Freedman’s Village for one year during the war, and many Northerners eagerly followed the accounts of the famous contraband camp on the grounds of the Custis-Lee Mansion.

Freedman's Village, 1864.

The tale of Union war dead (many of whose deaths could be traced back directly to Lee’s army) being buried at Lee’s home and a contraband camp situated on the site where approximately 60 slaves had toiled is rich in irony.

But what if the irony went even deeper than that?

What if thousands of United States Colored Troops were taught the rudiments of being a soldier on the grounds of Arlington as well?

Enter the tantalizing mystery of Camp Casey.

I first ran across the story of Camp Casey when I joined the recreated 23rd USCT last year. The original 23rd was organized at Camp Casey in late 1863 was sent south from there in 1864, just in time for the Overland Campaign. But the 23rd was far from the only African American unit trained at Camp Casey. The 2nd, 28th, and 29th USCT (to name a few) spent time at Camp Casey as well.

So where exactly was Camp Casey? Well, that’s the question I’ve been trying to answer for quite some time now. Here is a sample of what I’ve been able to piece together so far:

We know that you could see Arlington House from it. A soldier in the 1st Battalion, New York Sharpshooters wrote in late 1863 that Camp Casey was “in sight of Rebel General Lee’s residence.” Robert Hamilton, a correspondent for the Weekly Anglo-African, wrote that Camp Casey was “situated on Arlington Heights not very far from the late residence of the far-famed rebel Gen. Lee.”A further piece of the puzzle comes into clarity from the chronicler of the 29th USCT, Edward A. Miller, Jr. who places Camp Casey “near Fort Albany, one of the installations built to defend the capital.” Circumstantial evidence comes from a War Department document from November of 1864 authorizing Charles Syphax to sell food and other items “to the soldiers within the limits of Camp Casey, Va until further orders.”Charles Syphax oversaw the dining room at Arlington and lived on property adjoining the original 1,100 acre estate. Given the fact that Syphax was in his 70’s in 1864, Camp Casey must have been near his residence.

Confusing matters is the fact that there were at least two other camps in the nearby area named after Silas Casey – one in Bladensburg, MD and another near Shooter’s Hill in Alexandria. Both are too far away to see Arlington House and nowhere near the location of Fort Albany. This makes sense because Casey commanded the Provisional Brigade, which unbrigaded USCT units were a part of.

I have examined at least a dozen different maps of Arlington and the surrounding area and Camp Casey doesn’t appear on any of them.
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Defenses of Washington. Note the location of Ft. Albany and its proximity to Arlington House.

﻿ ﻿﻿﻿﻿However, it seems safe to say that Camp Casey was very near – possibly on – the estate that Lee lived at for over 30 years. If Camp Casey can be pinpointed to be on the Arlington site it would add yet poignant and significant dimension to a place already steeped in Civil War lore.

It also leads to a very tantalizing question – if Camp Casey was on the Arlington estate andmany slaves from the nearby area came to the camp to enlist in the Union army, did any of the Custis slaves whom Lee would have known very well take up arms and fight against him?

To illustrate how amazing this possibility could prove to be, let me illustrate by giving a hypothetical. Let’s suppose that one of the male slaves at Arlington ventured into Camp Casey and joined one of the units that would soon be embroiled in the Battle of the Crater. By some miracle, he survives the battle and is taken prisoner. As he is being marched to the rear, he walks by Lee and some of his staff who have ridden up to take in the situation.

And then it happens.

Their eyes meet.

Lee is utterly taken aback by that fact that he recognizes one of the black faces being paraded by him.

It may seem far-fetched, but we do know that nearby slaves did wonder into Camp Casey and enlist. We even have records of the commandant of Freedman’s Village complaining that members of the 23rd USCT were going into the contraband camp and forcing young male slaves to join the army (the 23rd took the highest casualty rate of any USCT unit at the Crater). We may have even found a Custis slave who joined a USCT unit (more on that later).

As far-fetched as it may sound, my mind starts to race when I contemplate the significance of such a hypothetical encounter!

My search for Camp Casey and the underlying implications of its location, then, will be a major feature of my research as my stint as a Park Ranger at Arlington House continues. Any breakthroughs will be reported on The Sable Arm, and if anyone out there has any insights on this matter, please shoot them my way.

“Jimmy's book is excellent and highly recommended! …The honor was mine in being able to work with this fine author.” - Don Troiani, Historical Artist

“Thanks to Mr. Price’s diligent research, students of the war finally have a volume that details one of the most important, if not the most important, moments in United States African American military history.” - Jim Lighthizer, President, Civil War Trust

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The views expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not reflect those of any group, organization, or institution.

About Me

Jimmy Price is a Museum Education Specialist with the US Army Women's Museum. An Air Force veteran, he received his M.A. in Military History from Norwich University in 2009. His first book, The Battle of NewMarket Heights: Freedom Will Be Theirs by the Sword, was published in 2011. The Journal of Southern History claims “this slim volume offers considerable insight regarding the black military experience.” His second book, The Battle of First Deep Bottom was released to critical acclaim in 2014. Jimmy writes about different aspects of military history on his blogs Freedom by the Sword: A Historian’s Journey through the American Civil War Era andOver There: Blogging the AEF and WWI. He has contributed essays to A Companion to the Meuse-Argonne Campaign (edited by Edward G. Lengel), Hallowed Groundmagazine, and the International Encyclopedia of the First World War. He lives in Fredericksburg, Virginia with his wife and three children.